Sometimes I see Trump saying something ridiculous and I get angry. Other times I’m amused. And frequently, like today, I’m embarrassed to be a citizen of a country that elected an incompetent idiot as president.
Watching CNN on my iPhone as I was exercising on an elliptical machine at our fitness club, I saw clips of Trump announcing his executive order regarding childhood vaccines. A Politico story, “Trump redoubles effort to shrink recommended vaccines ahead of midterm elections,” says:
President Donald Trump on Monday reignited his effort to overhaul the government’s vaccine recommendations with an executive order directing federal agencies to reduce the number of recommended vaccines children get and spread the shots out over more doctors appointments.
…Monday’s executive order again recommends children get vaccinated for 11 diseases, down from the 18 immunizations that were recommended before Trump returned to office.
For the vaccines that are no longer recommended by the CDC, including shots for hepatitis A, hepatitis B, rotavirus, meningococcal disease, influenza and Covid-19, the executive order directs families to talk to their doctors and make a “shared clinical decision” about whether their children should receive them.
The executive order also directs agencies to extend the time period in which children get vaccinations by separating out the combined MMR vaccine into three separate shots and by spreading other recommended vaccines out over separate appointments.
As usually is the case, almost everything Trump said was a lie. He rambled on about how the bodies of little children are filled with a soda bottles worth of vaccines at a single doctor visit. Actually, it is more like a teaspoon, and that is for the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) shot that combines three vaccines.
When asked what evidence Trump had for the supposed danger of giving multiple vaccines to children at one time, Politico reported:
As he signed the order, Trump described the combination MMR vaccine as “quite lethal.” Asked by a reporter whether he had any evidence to back up his claim, Trump said no.
“What I’ve heard is that there are some people that say it is that way, and I say, ‘Well, let’s say there’s a 5 percent chance of it, let’s split it up,’” the president said.
Doctors and public health groups have long advocated for giving multiple vaccinations in one visit because having to return for multiple appointments makes it more likely that people will skip vaccines and bring down overall vaccination coverage.
Bizarrely, currently there is no way the MMR vaccine can be split up into three separate doses, because there are no approved individual vaccines for measles, mumps, and rubella. Developing individual vaccines likely will take years and involve clinical trials. Hopefully we’ll have a new Democratic president by then who will trash Trump’s executive order.
Trump also repeated his totally made-up lie that vaccines cause autism. In truth, study after study has shown that vaccines don’t cause autism.
But since Trump has heard that they do, almost certainly from the same people (named RFK Jr.) who wrongly claim that the MMR vaccine is dangerous, he keeps on spreading a falsehood that will cause some children to die from a preventable disease, because their parents will believe what Trump says and allow the children to go unvaccinated.
Fortunately, Trump’s vaccination edicts don’t carry the force of law. Only the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) can come up with recommended vaccines, and ACIP may not go along with Trump’s evidence-free executive order. Blue states like Oregon will ignore Trump’s vaccine recommendations, choosing to follow settled science rather than the whims of a president who believes that his feelings should be the basis of medical decision-making.
Discover more from Salem Political Snark
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.